


Talk Less, Smile More

by Sohotthateveryonedied



Series: Whumptober 2020 [24]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Injury, Dreams and Nightmares, Gen, Good Older Sibling Dick Grayson, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Muteness, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prompt: "Forced Mutism", Recovery, Whumptober 2020, mute character, poor guy, tim still isn't over the trauma of what happened to him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:33:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27183878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sohotthateveryonedied/pseuds/Sohotthateveryonedied
Summary: Tim wakes up, a silent cry scraping up his throat.He grapples for his neck, wheezing panicked gasps as he feels for the thick blood that should be painting his skin, the gash carved through his trachea. Instead, he finds the ridge of a scar and the soft collar of the shirt he wore to bed.
Relationships: Tim Drake & Dick Grayson
Series: Whumptober 2020 [24]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948297
Comments: 11
Kudos: 296





	Talk Less, Smile More

**Author's Note:**

> Whump Day 24: "Forced Mutism"
> 
> Finally continued with this mute!Tim AU!! I don't know when or if I'll have more for this series, but I hope you enjoy this installment lmao. I think this AU and the "I See Dead People" ones are my favorites.

Cold gravel presses against Tim’s back, digging in through the kevlar padding as he lies on the rooftop. There isn’t much to see; there so rarely is when you live in a city ranked the seventh most polluted in the United States. There are so few stars above, but each twinkles its heart out as if they’re laughing at Tim’s misfortune down below. They watch him bleed out and titter as it happens.   
  
Time moves in little eternities bookended by larger ones, pockets of time that make no sense because, by all reason, Tim should have been dead hours ago. It certainly feels like he’s been here that long. Maybe this is just how it goes when you die. Your heart slows, beat by beat, and with it slows consciousness. Your thoughts become a dripping faucet, never quite knowing when to stop until fate says “fuck it” and twists off the handle.    
  
Tim is dying. He knows that for certain. What other option is there when you can’t breathe and are bleeding out faster than anyone can run to save you?    
  
Miraculously, there is no pain as Tim slowly chokes on his own blood; only the agonizing push and pull of lungs struggling for air they can’t reach. Tim is going to die here, all by himself on this damn bloodied rooftop. Who knows how long it will be until someone finds the body, if the rats don’t chew him down to the bone first.   
  
Maybe it’ll be a janitor. Maybe a suicide jumper will stumble upon Tim’s mangled corpse and be convinced not to do the deed, if only to spare themselves the humiliation of rotting alone on icy gravel.   
  
Tears slip over Tim’s temples and catch in his bloodied hair. Will his family wonder what happened to him, or will they simply forget to check if their brother and son is still alive? How long will it take for them to realize that Tim hasn’t checked in? Days? Weeks? Ever?   
  
_ I did it for you,  _ he would tell them if he had breath.  _ All of you. For Bruce. I just wanted to bring our family back together.  _ He just wanted to bring Bruce  _ back.  _ Instead he went and got himself killed.   
  
Tim can’t see how severe the damage is, but he knows it’s too deep to fix. It’s too deep to  _ breathe, _ but Tim tries anyway because lungs are one of those things that refuses to give up, even when the rest of your body knows it’s a wasted effort. Tim gasps for air he can’t have, choking as blood spurts from the wound, spilling down his throat and pooling on his collarbone.   
  
He hovers on that precipice between life and death—a fish on a beach, a sailor between plank and shark-infested waters. He’s so sure of it that for a moment, he’s convinced that he hallucinates the shape swinging overhead. It’s his personal angel of death, come to collect.   
  
Then he blinks back the fog of self-grief, the misty tears clouding his vision. Because he would recognize Dick Grayson anywhere, batsuit or not.   
  
Tim opens his mouth and strains to make a noise, to scream,  _ anything.  _ But some invisible force holds him down and keeps his limbs from working. All he needs is one noise, and maybe this doesn’t have to be the end. Or if it does, then at least he’ll have his big brother to hold him as he goes.   
  
_ Dick,  _ he mouths.  _ Help me.  _ But all that comes out are whooshes of air, grating against his mutilated throat and severed vocal cords. Tim is suffocating to death and help is  _ so close,  _ but so far away. Dick can’t hear him. No one will ever hear him again.   
  
_ Please, Dick,  _ Tim silently wheezes as the shape gets farther and farther away.  _ I’m scared. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be alone anymore. _   
  
The scene gets blurry as his eyelids droop without his consent, Dick’s image still prominent against the blackness, like he’s determined to tease Tim with rescue just out of reach. Tim’s chest jerks as he strains for air, his vision darkening at the edges, taking him away…   
  
Tim wakes up, a silent cry scraping up his throat.    
  
He grapples for his neck, wheezing panicked gasps as he feels for the thick blood that should be painting his skin, the gash carved through his trachea. Instead, he finds the ridge of a scar and the soft collar of the shirt he wore to bed.   
  
Tim releases a shaky breath. He’s drenched in sweat, sticky and making him shiver despite the sheets tangled around his legs. Trembling fingers touch his cheek and find salty wetness there, the remnants of tears he shed in his sleep.   
  
_ It’s fine,  _ he tells himself.  _ It was just a dream.  _ A memory.  _ You’re okay now.  _ He hasn’t been okay in months.   
  
The only sound to be heard in the dark bedroom is Tim’s own harsh breathing. He runs a hand through his hair, scrubs away the tears. God. He should be past this by now, right? And yet he can’t escape the lingering image of nightmare and memory blurred together, combining to create a worse monster in his head.   
  
Before he knows what he’s doing, Tim is reaching for his cell phone and punching in the numbers, trying to pretend like there aren’t glass shards pushing their way through his lungs.   
  
Three rings. A click.  _ “Tim?”  _ Dick sounds exhausted, his voice thick with sleep.  _ “It’s three in the morning.”  _ Oh. Tim didn’t even think to check the time. Now he feels kind of bad for waking Dick up when the guy already gets so little sleep as it is.  _ “What’s up?” _   
  
It hasn’t occurred to Tim until now that he can’t exactly talk over the phone anymore. He keeps forgetting that part, keeps answering calls only to feel a rock settle in his stomach when he remembers that he can’t even say hello. He let instinct carry him tonight, drive him to do what he does every time he has a nightmare: call Dick.    
  
He hears the shifting of a mattress.  _ “Did you have a nightmare?” _   
  
Tim doesn’t say anything— _ can’t _ say anything, but there’s a sigh on the other end as Dick must take the shuddering breaths for what they are. Even voiceless, Dick knows him so well.    
  
_ “What can I do?” _   
  
Good question. Swallowing thickly, Tim lowers his phone to the nightstand and knocks on the wood. Morse code.  _ Talk. _   
  
_ “Okay,”  _ Dick says. Tim can almost hear the cogs in his brain clicking as he thinks.  _ “Uh...want to hear about the last time Donna and I went out drinking?” _ He doesn’t wait for an answer and starts talking, rambles on about gay bars and something called a Long Island iced tea.   
  
Tim lies back down and puts Dick on speakerphone, letting his voice fill the room. Slowly, as Dick rambles, Tim’s heart begins to settle. His hands stop shaking, little by little. Breathing gets easier, less like he’s sucking in air through a pixie stick.   
  
He doesn’t know how he’ll ever get used to this, to the never-ending silence.    
  
Tim was comfortable being the quiet Robin compared to his predecessors, because at least then it was a conscious  _ choice  _ to adopt the same silent, brooding demeanor as his mentor. Just as often as he came in with a quip and a joke, Tim thought. He listened. He got  _ good  _ at the silence, at hearing what others missed and catching cues between words. Tim had a  _ reason  _ for his own silence, just as he had the power to drop the schtick in a second and go back to being Tim Drake.   
  
But now? Now the choice to be quiet has been made for him.   
  
And that is a fate worse than he ever could have bargained for.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> [Feel free to mosey on down to my Tumblr!](http://sohotthateveryonedied.tumblr.com/)


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